Scraping Business Incubator Portfolios, Accelerator Cohort Pages, Startup Program Alumni Lists and Innovation Hub Directories for B2B Leads
On this page
Accelerator and Incubator Companies Are Ideal B2B Prospects
Startups that have completed an accelerator or incubator program share characteristics that make them exceptionally good prospects for B2B service providers and SaaS companies. They are validated: an accelerator accepted them from hundreds or thousands of applicants, which means their idea, team, and market have passed at least a basic diligence filter. They are funded: most accelerator programs provide seed funding ($50,000-$500,000 depending on the program), and many graduates raise additional capital shortly after demo day. They are actively building: accelerator graduates are in execution mode, which means they are making purchasing decisions about tools, services, and infrastructure.
Most importantly, they are at a stage where their vendor relationships are not yet locked in. A Series C company has existing contracts with accounting firms, law firms, cloud providers, marketing agencies, and payroll services. Changing any of these is a high-friction decision. A freshly graduated accelerator company is choosing these vendors for the first time. The B2B company that reaches them at this moment becomes the incumbent -- and incumbency in B2B relationships is powerful.
The data for finding these companies is publicly available. Accelerators and incubators publish their portfolio companies on their websites as a showcase of their success. These portfolio pages are essentially curated directories of early-stage companies organized by cohort, industry, and stage.
Major Accelerator Portfolio Pages
Y Combinator publishes its directory at ycombinator.com/companies, which includes every company that has gone through the program since its inception. Each listing includes the company name, batch (e.g., W24 for Winter 2024), industry tags, short description, team size, location, and links to the company website and sometimes founder LinkedIn profiles. The directory is searchable and filterable by batch, industry, region, and status (active, acquired, inactive). YC's directory is one of the most comprehensive accelerator datasets publicly available.
Techstars publishes portfolio companies at techstars.com/portfolio, organized by program location (Techstars runs programs in multiple cities worldwide) and year. Each listing includes the company name, description, founding year, location, and link to the company website. Techstars also publishes alumni success stories and case studies that reveal additional details about portfolio companies.
500 Global (formerly 500 Startups) lists portfolio companies on its website, organized by batch and sector. The portfolio spans over 2,800 companies across 80+ countries, making it one of the largest accelerator portfolios.
MassChallenge publishes its cohort companies organized by year and program location (Boston, Israel, Mexico, Switzerland, Rhode Island). MassChallenge is notable because it is a non-equity accelerator -- it does not take equity in its startups, which means its cohort companies retain full ownership and may have different funding dynamics than equity-accelerator graduates.
Local and regional accelerators publish similar portfolio pages. Every mid-size and large city has local accelerator and incubator programs: university-affiliated programs (MIT delta v, Stanford StartX, Harvard iLab), regional economic development programs (state-funded innovation centers), and industry-specific accelerators (healthcare accelerators, fintech accelerators, clean energy accelerators). These local programs are particularly valuable for B2B companies that sell locally because the portfolio companies are geographically concentrated.
Extracting Contact Data
Save accelerator portfolio pages, cohort listing pages, and individual company profile pages as HTML files. Upload to Email Extractor to extract email addresses from these pages. Portfolio pages that include founder email addresses or company contact information yield direct contacts. Pages that link to company websites require a second step: visit each company's website, save the contact or team page as HTML, and upload for extraction.
For large accelerator portfolios (YC has over 4,000 companies), focus on the most recent cohorts. Companies from the last 2-3 cohorts are the most receptive to outreach because they are actively building and buying. Companies from 5+ years ago have either failed (and are no longer prospects) or succeeded (and have established vendor relationships that are hard to displace).
Filter by industry relevance before extracting. If you sell accounting software, focus on fintech and e-commerce cohort companies. If you sell developer tools, focus on SaaS and deeptech cohort companies. If you sell HR services, focus on companies that have grown past 10 employees (typically 1-2 years post-accelerator).
Timing Outreach to Demo Days
Accelerator demo days are the single best timing signal for outreach. Demo day is when accelerator companies pitch to investors and the broader startup community. It marks the end of the program and the beginning of the company's independent growth phase.
The week after demo day is when these companies are making infrastructure decisions: setting up accounting, choosing a payroll provider, selecting a CRM, hiring their first employees, and signing up for the tools they will use to build the business. Outreach that arrives in this window is timely and relevant.
Demo day schedules are published in advance. Y Combinator demo days are twice a year (March and August/September). Techstars demo days vary by program location but follow a similar pattern. Most accelerators announce demo day dates on their websites and social media weeks in advance.
"Hi [Founder Name], congratulations on completing [Accelerator Name] -- I saw [Company]'s demo day pitch and was impressed by [specific reference to their product or market]. As you move into your next growth phase, [specific service or product you offer] is something most [Accelerator] companies set up in the first few months post-program. We work with several [Accelerator] alumni, including [2-3 names if public and permitted]. [One sentence about what you do and why it matters for their stage.] Happy to jump on a quick call if this is on your radar. If not, no worries -- wishing you a great launch."
This outreach works because it is specifically timed (post demo day), references a specific event (the pitch), demonstrates relevant experience (working with other alumni), and offers a low-pressure next step.
University Entrepreneurship Programs
University-affiliated incubators and entrepreneurship programs are an underutilized lead source. Nearly every major university runs some form of startup support program: formal incubators (NYU Tandon Future Labs, Georgia Tech ATDC, University of Michigan SPARK), business plan competition winners, and entrepreneurship class final project companies that continued beyond the classroom.
These programs publish their company portfolios, competition winners, and alumni directories on their websites. The companies are earlier stage than accelerator graduates (many are pre-revenue or pre-product), which makes them better prospects for services that serve very early companies (legal incorporation, initial accounting setup, MVP development agencies) than for services that require meaningful revenue (enterprise SaaS tools, full-service marketing agencies).
Save university program portfolio pages, competition winner announcements, and alumni directories as HTML. Upload to Email Extractor to extract founder and company contact information. University program alumni are often particularly responsive to outreach because they receive less vendor outreach than major accelerator graduates.
